21:00 29 July 2008
Today was a very exciting day. As part of the community assignments for Peace Corps, each TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) trainees are required to start English clubs in their community. This gives us an opportunity to practice lesson planning, working together, and trying out various learned teaching techniques. Initially I was skeptical about both the usefulness of such an event (I was of the opinion that it would be more valuable to spend our time learning Russian and Kyrgyz than trying to hold English clubs) but after our first event, my outlook has completely changed.
We held our first meeting in the village’s school. The nice thing about being a volunteer in a Post-Soviet country is that, while it is old, of poor-quality, and literally crumbling, infrastructure does exist. My village’s school is a Soviet cookie cutter building but does contain desks, chairs, and chalkboards, and even maps (complete with the good ole’ C.C.C.P.). After discussing what we wanted to teach our children for the first day, we decided to start with introductory phrases “Hello. My name is _____.”, “What is your name?”, “Nice to meet you.” and play some games with them. Then we moved on to the bulk of the lesson, common animals. Being that it was a voluntary English Club rather than class, we made the lessons game-oriented, and that seemed to suit the children just fine.
I was pleasantly surprised by how many children showed up and how willing and active they were to learn. The first child, a young Russian boy, came with his mother and showed up alone. Trying to introduce ourselves to him, he was petrified with fear and could not respond. I was worried this might be the norm among the students. However, as more students showed up (a total of about 15 came- our LCF said this was more than usual for the first day) everyone began to open up. By the end of lesson, the young boy that had first showed up was bursting with enthusiasm to participate and went before the class several times for English animal charades. I was pleased to find that, by its conclusion, it seems that a good portion of the information had at least somewhat sunk in. I definitely think future reviews of the information will be necessary to cement it, but it was definitely a positive first day. The students asked if they could have class again tomorrow, and while we certainly can’t make them a daily activity, we are discussing having them multiple times a week and for longer if the demand continues to exist.
After dinner, I went out to the field on the outskirts of the village to try and take pictures of the mountains (the views from within the village are pretty but intermittent). It was sunset and very pretty. Unfortunately, the pictures didn’t come out great, but I am sure I will have plenty of opportunities to get more pictures of mountains. Oh, I also had my permanent site interview on yesterday, and I will be finding out my permanent location in three weeks. Very exciting stuff.
Today was a very exciting day. As part of the community assignments for Peace Corps, each TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) trainees are required to start English clubs in their community. This gives us an opportunity to practice lesson planning, working together, and trying out various learned teaching techniques. Initially I was skeptical about both the usefulness of such an event (I was of the opinion that it would be more valuable to spend our time learning Russian and Kyrgyz than trying to hold English clubs) but after our first event, my outlook has completely changed.
We held our first meeting in the village’s school. The nice thing about being a volunteer in a Post-Soviet country is that, while it is old, of poor-quality, and literally crumbling, infrastructure does exist. My village’s school is a Soviet cookie cutter building but does contain desks, chairs, and chalkboards, and even maps (complete with the good ole’ C.C.C.P.). After discussing what we wanted to teach our children for the first day, we decided to start with introductory phrases “Hello. My name is _____.”, “What is your name?”, “Nice to meet you.” and play some games with them. Then we moved on to the bulk of the lesson, common animals. Being that it was a voluntary English Club rather than class, we made the lessons game-oriented, and that seemed to suit the children just fine.
I was pleasantly surprised by how many children showed up and how willing and active they were to learn. The first child, a young Russian boy, came with his mother and showed up alone. Trying to introduce ourselves to him, he was petrified with fear and could not respond. I was worried this might be the norm among the students. However, as more students showed up (a total of about 15 came- our LCF said this was more than usual for the first day) everyone began to open up. By the end of lesson, the young boy that had first showed up was bursting with enthusiasm to participate and went before the class several times for English animal charades. I was pleased to find that, by its conclusion, it seems that a good portion of the information had at least somewhat sunk in. I definitely think future reviews of the information will be necessary to cement it, but it was definitely a positive first day. The students asked if they could have class again tomorrow, and while we certainly can’t make them a daily activity, we are discussing having them multiple times a week and for longer if the demand continues to exist.
After dinner, I went out to the field on the outskirts of the village to try and take pictures of the mountains (the views from within the village are pretty but intermittent). It was sunset and very pretty. Unfortunately, the pictures didn’t come out great, but I am sure I will have plenty of opportunities to get more pictures of mountains. Oh, I also had my permanent site interview on yesterday, and I will be finding out my permanent location in three weeks. Very exciting stuff.
(Top) Eening shot of a factory
(Bottom) View from my road
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